Life happens. Children get sick; cars break down; storms cut off electricity.

We get it.

We even understand that sometimes all of these things happen within a week to some people!

Around here, we blame it on the sun/moon/star alignment. Or we call it the Dark Cloud Syndrome.

But it really is just life.

As the organized* mystery shopper we know you are, when life happens and you find that moment to ask yourself, “What was I supposed to be doing?” and you remember it was a secret shop, we ask only one thing:

If you’ve made your best effort to keep in touch, explain what is happening, and inform us that you know for sure you can do it tomorrow or that it’s not going to happen this week, we promise:

Your rating won’t change.

We’ll work on a new date.

We’ll still work with you in the future.

All we need for you to do is contact us as soon as possible. Respect our deadlines and our need to get a job done, and we will respect and understand your circumstances.

Should you not be an organized mystery shopper and thereby not contact us, ignore our emails for an update or call a week later telling us you had forgotten about your assignment but still want to do the shop, well…we can’t promise anything.

So when life happens, please make contact!

We all have those dark-cloud days – tell us your story in the comments below!

*An organized mystery shopper has a list of companies, their phone numbers and email information in an easily accessible place that does not need electricity to access. They also have their mystery shops on their calendar with important contact info.

11 Responses to Life Happens – Make Contact!

My car will still run, but with water (anti-freeze) in the oil, I will not be driving it anytime soon. I refuse to get rid of it, since it is the one and only high ticket item I have ever managed to finish paying for in my entire life. At my age (recently turned 65), I was figuring it would be the last car I would own, and I still feel that way. I am either “out of business” or will have to step outside of my comfort zone and start doing mostly phone shops, shorten my perimeter to 5 miles or less and just make do until I can afford to get it fixed! This would be a great time to start working on that eBook I was planning to write. The best thing about being 65 is that monthly bus passes only cost half the price of regular fare. I will probably know many of them by heart before the summer is through. I did not necessarily intend this to be a public post, but whatever you decide to do with it is fine with me.

Chris – thanks for sharing your story.(Maybe it’s the one you will write for your e-book!). There are plenty of phone and web mystery shops out there. We are sure you can find a way to make the money to repair your car if you stay focused and check the boards. Keep the lines of communication open with your schedulers and the opportunities will come your way!

Thank you for this. I agree this is the way it should be and is usually is. However, recently I was stunned when I failed to complete a phone shop by the deadline and was immediately issued a flake citation, literally the minute after the shop was due. The scheduler did not even attempt to find out if there were extenuating circumstances that prevented me from completing the shop. This is not my usual experience with this particular company.

Bev, we are so sorry you had that experience. You never know what kind of deadline the scheduler was under, so it may have been easier to remove you from the shop and get someone else to do it. But you should give them a call and express your concern. They could revoke the citation.

You’re right, and I understand about tight deadlines. But I also think the scheduler should at least have said, “If you do not complete this shop by the stated deadline, you will immediately be issued a flake citation.” Nothing was communicated along those lines, as I recall.

Thank you very much for that much needed advice, From my experience most of the companies I work with come off as if they could careless about what issue arose. Their bottom line is the assignment you agreed to do still needs to be done. Therefore it put me in a position to just not bother to explain my situation because I did want to hear the scold speech. especially when I am already beating myself up for not being able to complete the assignment.

Unfortunately, not all schedulers are as reasonable. I worked as a scheduler many years ago for a few companies, both on Prophet and Sassie, and knew on the inside that we had all month to get the job done. Many schedulers claim that there is no flexibility, which is true in some cases, but is not true most of the time. I had a scheduler claim a job could not be rescheduled when I told her the entire road was closed for over a mile for a street fair and the location was not accessible, which I did not know when I scheduled it. She claimed it had to be done that weekend (I knew it was a lie, because month after month, I saw the shop sitting on the job board later in the month). I offered to do it the following weekend and she said, “NO.” Yet, three weeks later, when no one would do it, she came back asking if I could still do it. Are you kidding me? This happens so often dealing with schedulers. I could understand if it is a new shopper that you are unsure about, but not when you are dealing with someone with over 20 years experience and an average score of 10 on Sassie with every single company, it makes no sense for a scheduler to be difficult when unexpected things come up.

Debbie – Having been a scheduler, I am sure you do know there is flexibility. But you likely also remember that it is important to get shops done as early as possible so that you can reschedule any that were not completed correctly. It is hard to be a scheduler and hard to be a shopper. We like to believe most shoppers and schedulers are reasonable and respectful of one another. Both have frustrating jobs at times.